By then it was full daylight. Owen led me into his room: a single mattress and scattered piles of crap on the carpet. We lay on the mattress and made out. I told him I was trans, but it seemed like he’d guessed that. He asked some stupid questions, and then he stopped. I started jerking him off, said I wanted him to fuck me. He stopped moving and stared at the ceiling.

I can take a hint, you know? I got up and walked out the door so I could give the car back and sleep a few hours before my shift. I never saw Owen again, but one evening, a month later, I woke up to a sunset and I remembered when the sun had risen over the tree with his body next to mine under the blanket, and a softness in my heart awakened and said, What if you hadn’t run away? That night, I went to the beer vendor and asked after him, as one of his friends from that night worked there. The friend was the guy who said we should leave the floodway.

The friend was heartened that I’d asked after Owen. He gave me his number, said, “You should get in touch with him.” The friend looked hopeful as he said it. I wonder if I could’ve communicated to him. How as soon I took the number down, I knew. I knew I would be too chickenshit, too courageless to crack the door on even the chance of a good outcome. I didn’t have the courage. That was a long time ago, and I lost the number, but I still remember the feeling.

Acknowledgments

The stories in this book were written across many Canadian provinces and US states. I’ve called a lot of places home, but nowhere more than the prairies of Treaty 1 territory, homeland of the Metis Nation. I am grateful to be from there.

Friends who read these stories first—I couldn’t have written this without you, thank you: Jeanne Thornton, Meredith Russo, Cat Fitzpatrick, Daniel Shank Cruz, Calvin Gimpelevich, Alison Pick, Kai Taddei, Alex Leslie, Kyle Lukoff, Nathan Dueck, Grace Kehler, Lindsay Wong, Hazel Jane Plante, Mapes Thorson, Patty Yumi Cottrell, Torrey Peters,Jessica Westhead, Alexis N. Wright. Particular thanks to Michael Hingston for his work on “Hazel & Christopher,” and enormous gratitude to the best writing group: Rebecca Novack, Megan Milks, Craig Willse, Ayeh Bandeh-Ahmadi, Raechel Anne Jolie, and Svetlana Kitto. Finally, an overwhelming thank-you to Shirarose Wilensky. You’re a stellar editor, and this book and I have been fortunate to have you.

A big thanks to all the sweet, hard-working souls at Arsenal Pulp—Brian Lam, Robert Ballantyne, Cynara Geissler, Jazmin Welch, Jaiden Dembo, you’re true publishing angels, all!

Thank you to the Canada Council for the Arts and Princeton’s Hodder Fellowship for invaluable financial support. Thank you to MacDowell and PLAYA for providing residency space and quiet, and thank you to my cohorts at both for your friendship and kinship (and dance parties, croquet showdowns, the Democracy Express, the Paisley Saloon …)